Graeme Welch has named a thirteen-man squad for tomorrow's game against Leicestershire that starts the Chesterfield cricket festival. The ground that Sachin Tendulkar called his favourite in the world, not just because he scored his first century for India there, plays host to six days of cricket in the next week and I hope that the week is as well supported as usual.
I'll be there in spirit this week, but having lined up visits down south at the the start and end of September, as well as another to Scarborough in August, I won't manage this one. In ticking the delightful Yorkshire coastal ground from my 'to do' list, however, I just have the Chesterfield cricket festival left on it. One of these years, hopefully soon, I will be there for the duration...
Derbyshire;s squad for tomorrow, looking for its second win of the T20 summer, is as follows:
Wes Durston, Chesney Hughes, Gareth Cross, Wayne Madsen, Marcus North, Scott Elstone, Alex Hughes, Tony Palladino, David Wainwright, Greg Cork, Mark Turner, Matt Higginbottom, Tom Knight
There's a strong argument for Tom Knight returning to the side after his heroics with the second team this week, but I would hope that the Derbyshire bowling is better than in the season-opener for this competition at Grace Road, where it bordered on shambolic. With a greater emphasis on spin bowling, the attack seems more in keeping with accepted practice now, while having a few younger sets of legs in the field is never a bad thing.
We always seem to reserve our worst for Leicestershire in this competition, so it would be nice to see us go about tomorrow's game more professionally. Their squad is packed full of aggressive batsmen who are well suited to the format, while the return of Naik, Buick and Shreck gives the attack a more menacing look than in the recent four-day game at Leicester.
Their squad:
Cobb, O'Brien, Smith, Eckersley, Boyce, Styris, Wells, Taylor, Raine, Naik, Buck, Shreck, Ireland.
If Derbyshire show that they have learned the harsh lessons of this year's competition and use greater common sense with bat and ball, we can win this. If not, then it could be another tough afternoon.
I'm going to go for a win. We're due another one and there are gradual, albeit slow signs of improvement.
More from me tomorrow.
Why no Chanderpaul in the squad? I thought we could have 2 overseas players in a T20 game.
ReplyDeletePlaying at Lords today Tony. If we were in the mix he would play but will be back for championship match
ReplyDeleteDecided to play instead of go. I'll perhaps go next Sunday if they get their finger out this week.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to going to Chesterfield though I,m not quite as certain of the result as you seem to be Peakfan.
ReplyDeleteTraditionally,Leicestershire are something of a bogey team and the only reason we beat them in the championship match was because half of it was missing. I hope we do win but we will have to perform much better as a unit than in most previous games.
Too many bowlers are averaging over ten an over and this has to be reduced. Also,we need to make good use of the power play.
went today and decent crowd despite competing with Tour de france in sheffield, grand prix, wimbledon etc plus weather was kind. Our batting was probably 15-20 runs short to be honest despite a fantastic effort by Wes - he is getting back into some form no doubt - hats off to Ireland for Leicester some fantastic bowling at the start and end and coupled with some indifferent ground fielding from us plus not having a similar bowler to drag them down it cost us. But decent game nonthe less. i just hope to see some decent cricket from now on in as cant see us winning many games at all.
ReplyDeleteGood and fair comment as always Creweblade.
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